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Hulu Joins Netflix and Amazon In Promoting Royalty-free Video Codec AV1 (fiercecable.com)

Posted by msmash on from the together-at-last dept.

theweatherelectric writes: Hulu has joined the Alliance for Open Media, which is developing an open, royalty-free video format called AV1. AV1 is targeting better performance than H.265 and, unlike H.265, will be licensed under royalty-free terms for all use cases. The top three over-the-top SVOD services (Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu) are now all members of the alliance. In joining the alliance, Hulu hopes "to accelerate development and facilitate friction-free adoption of new media technologies that benefit the streaming media industry and [its] viewers."

134 comments

  1. Re:First by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Damn. Matt disappointed!

  2. Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Currently AV1 encoding with common encoding tools is a very time consuming process, as can be seen in the below screenshot taken from a Lenovo T540p notebook with an i7-4800MQ, 8GB RAM running Ubuntu 14.04. It would take 8 hours and 42 minutes to encode a 1080p@24fps 40 second long sequence (Tears of Steel Teaser) with a target bitrate of 1.5Mbps.

    I wonder if GPUs can speed things up?

    1. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Informative

      That, and writing a non-prototype encoder, most likely.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For home use, I don't really see the point of using these very computationally expensive codecs - it's not like you can make better rips... just smaller ones, and disk space isn't expensive anymore. My hundred-or-so DVD/Blu-Ray collection was ripped to h.264 a number of years ago, and those still work just fine.

      However for a commercial service, it's a different argument. Not only do they have tens of thousands of items in their catalogs, but there's also bandwidth to think about. For them, the investment may make sense. However if it's equally expensive, hardware-wise, to decode the streams... then they have to worry whether their customers will be willing to make the investment.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      a Lenovo T540p notebook with an i7-4800MQ, 8GB RAM

      There's your problem. You have to use the proper tool for the job.

      8 hours and 42 minutes to encode a 1080p@24fps 40 second long sequence with a target bitrate of 1.5Mbps.

      For comparison, I'm using a PC with 32GB RAM and an AMD 8 core CPU (the old FX, not the new Ryzen)

      It takes approx. 6 hours to encode a 2 hour 30 minute video, 1080p@25fps, HEVC/H.265, with a bitrate of 5Mbps.

    4. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      That the notebook was silly to mention in the first place. Less relevant than response for sure.

    5. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by williamyf · · Score: 1

      No worries dude. All these codecs are designed to be easier to decode them than it is to decode them, so inexpensive-real-time-decoding players for media consumption are feasible on day one (say, either streaming from the internet, or streaming from a plastic shiny disk spinning at a fixed rate).

      Normally you would produce content in non-compressed format for maximum quality, and then compress in non real-time. As time progresses, and moore's law progresses (and the programmers codding the codec refine the algorithms and code), it becomes feasible to encode in real time.

      Happened to pretty much every-single-lossy-video-codec!

      --
      *** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
    6. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Iâ(TM)m really not sure what youâ(TM)re trying to prove, youâ(TM)ve"

      Fix your stupid browser already

    7. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My hundred-or-so DVD/Blu-Ray collection was ripped to h.264 a number of years ago, and those still work just fine.

      So you compressed a high quality source into a smaller file, but you say there's no point in potentially doing it with better quality? You still have the original collection then you could get a quality improvement.

      If you don't have the original however you should note that files aren't getting smaller, and the "not expensive" 4TB HDD will quickly fill up if you value your 4K content.

    8. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Freischutz · · Score: 1

      For home use, I don't really see the point of using these very computationally expensive codecs - it's not like you can make better rips... just smaller ones, and disk space isn't expensive anymore. My hundred-or-so DVD/Blu-Ray collection was ripped to h.264 a number of years ago, and those still work just fine.

      However for a commercial service, it's a different argument. Not only do they have tens of thousands of items in their catalogs, but there's also bandwidth to think about. For them, the investment may make sense. However if it's equally expensive, hardware-wise, to decode the streams... then they have to worry whether their customers will be willing to make the investment.

      Don't see the point?? Who buys DVDs snd Blu-Rays these days to rip them? I never even bothered to get a Blu-Ray player. Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are streaming services. They presumably want to use this codec for streaming, in which case chewing up computational resources which are available in plenty on most PCs, is an acceptable tradeoff for better quality and above all probably less bandwidth consumption. This is especially important now that Trump's new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is getting ready to stomp the life out of net neutrality which is another way of saying that they are giving the telecom companies a blank cheque to start extorting streaming services and other businesses that rely on the internet for revenue. John Oliver wasn't far off when he likened the death of net neutrality to a license to freely perpetrate mafia style shakedowns on internet businesses. I just hope this thing at least gets blessed with cross browser <video> tag based streaming support.

    9. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see your point on the old catalog of stuff and would feel the same with the time to do so. But you can do it with the new stuff and still get equal quality at a smaller size or if you decide to do it again later with either more features included like more audio tracks or it is from a higher quality disc like you are upgrading a DvD quality rip with a blu ray or 8k quality rip. It does make lots of sense for the home stuff, just not for immediate recodes but more the future stuff. Especially if you are streaming it over your wifi and have multiple people using it.

      As far as decoding, decoding generally takes much less processing power than encoding and they are wanting to make sure that this is about as complex as the HEVC codec is meaning it would take just about the same processing power to decode it in software, so no real hit there and, while they already have some level of hardware coding for those codecs. Chances are that this one can probably partially use them optimizations on their stuff too and to fully implement the hardware decode in newer hardware will be easier than the HEVC stuff because they won't have to pay all that money to purchase the licence to decode the stuff like they did on all the old hardware which they had to pay per device to do it.

    10. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by bursch-X · · Score: 0

      Since when is DVD/MPEG-2 higher quality than mp4?

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
    11. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by bursch-X · · Score: 1

      It's not acceptable because that's the main reason why I get 1h or more browsing time out of my battery when using Safari which generally used the mp4 codec when available in video streams, while Chrome is trying to push their computationally expensive VP9 codec down our throats (particularly on YouYube). This is the same shit all over again.

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
    12. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Knightman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Quality of MPEG-2 is always greater than MPEG-2 re-encoded into mp4.

      There is some encoding and filter tricks you can do to hide the loss of quality somewhat, but is still a loss.

      --
      --- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
    13. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When it is the source file.

    14. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think it's advisable to use a laptop for heavy duty stuff like compressing and encoding large video files. Laptops don't usually have adequate cooling so you'd be slowly frying your CPU, GPU, and perhaps RAM.

    15. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well when I'm wanking off to pr0n that has been ripped from DVD/MPEG-2 and re-encoded, I always notice the loss of pleasure. I attribute it to generational loss. I honestly prefer to wank directly from the DVD. And not only is the pleaure heightend, but I also notice a fuller more abundant wad of semen.

    16. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a super powerful laptop, much comparable to your PC you're wanking about. So yes this is very relevant. This laptop might be less than 2x slower than your PC, perhaps quite less, and likely smokes yours in a single thread task.
      So, let's say the laptop is not doing well. It should be 2x slower, not 200x slower.

    17. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Since you ignored bitrate.
      Since you ignored that a lossy source is always higher quality than a second lossy recompression of the original lossy source.

    18. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by AaronW · · Score: 1

      With hardware acceleration AV1 is not that battery intensive. Just about everyone is adopting AV1 except Apple. What makes a big difference is if the underlying hardware supports offloading AV1 encoding and decoding. All of the major hardware vendors will support AV1, including Intel, AMD, ARM and Nvidia. Apple is the lone holdout. Most web browsers except Safari support AV1 which builds on VP9. VP9 is also not supported by Apple.

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      This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
    19. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      The fault is with Slashdot, which, inexplicably, chokes on Unicode.

    20. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The keyword here is royalty free... h.264 is encumbered by MPEG-LA

    21. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, decoding is always orders of magnitude less intensive than encoding. A regular PC will probably be enough for full hd playback in the beginning.
      Later hardware support will appear both for PC GPUs and for mobile SOCs (there're hardware manufacturers in the alliance) and it'll be feasible to play even on mobile devices.
      Meanwhile it can coexist with current codecs.
      Funnyly, this is one of those cases in which a few companies (alliance for open media) ally to fight other companies (h265's patent holders) and people in general will be better off for it.

    22. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by flargleblarg · · Score: 1

      [...] designed to be easier to decode them than it is to decode them, [...]

      lulwut?

    23. Re: Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quality of MPEG-2 is always greater than MPEG-2 re-encoded into mp4.

      False. Absolutely false. Loss of quality is totally dependent on the encoder's quality setting. For example, if you use RF10 in HandBrake when converting from MPEG-2 to H.264, you will not notice any quality difference. Even at RF15, you're hard-pressed to see any difference.

    24. Re:Encoding AV1 is computationally expensive by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see you watch anything using HVEC (265) codec. It has to be the worst out there and I wish it would go away.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
  3. Come to Kodi! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This should come to Kodi, right? I depend on Kodi for all my TV and movie consumption here in my mom's basement. She gets mad when I "hog all the internets" and Pinterest slows down for her, so hopefully this comes to Kodi sooner than later.

    I use Linux on my home-made quad core desktop.

  4. AV1 is interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    but I'm going to wait for AV2

    1. Re:AV1 is interesting by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Don't wait for AV8, buy it now!

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:AV1 is interesting by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1

      Followed by AV0 - the prequel.

    3. Re:AV1 is interesting by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      Then just 'AV', the reboot.

    4. Re:AV1 is interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You should wait for AV3.11 for workgroups.

    5. Re:AV1 is interesting by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Then the crossover, AV v. VC1.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    6. Re: AV1 is interesting by bursch-X · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the Amazing AV1.

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
    7. Re: AV1 is interesting by bursch-X · · Score: 1

      No, no, no. AV/2 Warp is the next big thing.

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
    8. Re:AV1 is interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meh, the ancient romans have been using AV1 since forever. It isn't anything to get excited about.

    9. Re:AV1 is interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll wait for the next codec that will be even betterer. I think they will call it "V".

  5. Oh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not so sure that this is a good thing, Hulu is heavily founded buy the entertainment industry. This more or less gives them a seat at the table. Not sure that any good comes of that.

    That said, it makes EME all the more concerning.

    1. Re:Oh... by king+neckbeard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even an evil clock is just twice a day. They don't want to be controlled by MPEG-LA and the like, and that competition benefits us all. Granted, it would be better if they were just against software patents.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    2. Re:Oh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >Even an evil clock is just twice a day

      No, that's not how evil.

  6. While nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It will take about 10 years for it to become a viable standard. Considering how many devices out there that won't support it. I know that I won't rush out to replace my Smart TV that can now handle H265 and H264. Nor will I be re-encoding my videos until forced to, which would be around 15-20 years IF IF IF this 'new video code' (heard this story before) becomes viable.

    1. Re:While nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It'll be shorter than that (ten years). If it uses no more hardware instructions than your current CPU (smart TV or otherwise) has, and it's no more computationally expensive than H.264; royalty-free codec pushed by all these big heavy-hitters who are sick of paying royalties to the MPEG cartel? It will be adopted PDQ as it will enable a LOT of manufacturers to add to their bottom-line by not paying royalties to MPEG et al.

    2. Re: While nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Your argument could equally be said about displayport yet hmdi won out on tvs, consoles, av receivers, settop boxes, pvrs.
      One big reason is displayport was slow to add ethernet, audio and drm to the spec but this is the same issue with av1. It is in alpha stage while h.265 is ready now with nvidia and amd already shipping cards long ago with h.265 hardware encoding and there are dozens of sub $100 arm set top boxes which do h.265 hardware decoding.

    3. Re:While nice... by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      It will take about 10 years for it to become a viable standard.

      No, the AV1 bitstream format will be frozen later this year, browsers will add support for AV1 soon after that (Mozilla, for example, is already working on it in Firefox), and YouTube, which is the world's largest video site, intends to start using AV1 as soon as possible. AV1 will be adopted quickly.

      Considering how many devices out there that won't support it.

      Many devices will be able to support it in software. My iPhone 7 doesn't "officially" support VP9 but VP9 video plays back just fine in VLC for iOS.

      Nor will I be re-encoding my videos until forced

      You don't have to re-encode anything unless you want to.

    4. Re:While nice... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Lets see the forces opposed to your choice. All media companies distributing compressed digital content (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding pretty fucking expensive 25 million dollars, for something that is a straight mathematical model pretty much any company could have come up with, nothing new, just application maths). Manufactures also save the fee and as a major bonus get to replace all outdated equipment or if the customer base in too cranky, supply a software update.

      So billions in cost savings or serving grumble bum you in your effort to not have to re-encode your videos, hmm, dude you are screwed. Never forget smart TVs can be software update not just via the network but even by free to air transmissions (most will just see the update without even knowing what it is for). Face on year of licence fees would pay for the development of a new codec ten times over.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:While nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hardware VP9 decoding is rare enough of a feature already. So, when many people will upgrade to cutting edge hardware that decodes VP9 fully and youtube switches to AV1 the following day, then millions will be left in the cold with useless silicon and 100% CPU use trying to play some 4k or 60fps stuff.
      This would be a terrible situation, unless youtube simultaneously provide VP9 for the following decade and actually sends VP9 to the users that need it.

    6. Re:While nice... by theweatherelectric · · Score: 2

      Hardware VP9 decoding is rare enough of a feature already.

      It's not that rare. Intel's been shipping VP9 decode acceleration for two years now. Android has supported VP9 decoding since Android 4.4, which was released in late 2013. If you have an Android phone, you probably have VP9 hardware acceleration. Plenty of AV1 hardware will be released in late 2018.

      But also don't underestimate today's mobile devices. I have an iPhone 7 and I can play VP9 video in software in VLC for iOS without issue. A future VLC update will add AV1 support.

    7. Re:While nice... by tepples · · Score: 1

      I have an iPhone 7 and I can play VP9 video in software in VLC for iOS without issue.

      Is shorter battery runtime not an "issue"? Or not being able to watch videos embedded in the webpage, especially videos that use Media Source Extensions or Encrypted Media Extensions?

    8. Re:While nice... by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      Is shorter battery runtime not an "issue"?

      No.

      Or not being able to watch videos embedded in the webpage, especially videos that use Media Source Extensions or Encrypted Media Extensions?

      Also no. Safari doesn't support VP9 so it won't be served up to Safari.

    9. Re:While nice... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Safari doesn't support VP9 so it won't be served up to Safari.

      Instead, a notice like the following would be served to Safari, Chrome for iOS, Firefox for iOS, and every other web browser for iOS.

      This video is not available on
      iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad.
      To watch this video on a desktop or
      laptop computer or Android device:
      [ Watch Later ]

      Would you find it acceptable if a growing fraction of web videos started displaying notices like this?

    10. Re:While nice... by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      Instead, a notice like the following would be served to Safari, Chrome for iOS, Firefox for iOS, and every other web browser for iOS.

      No, it will just serve H.264. All video streaming services will encode to H.264 as their baseline, fallback format and offer better formats as an option, which is exactly what they do now. If you can't play AV1 or VP9 you will be served H.264. That has been and will be the status quo for years to come.

    11. Re:While nice... by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      It depends whether we can manage to use existing hardware to accelerate decode.

      My devices that can handle streaming video include a TiVo, PS3, PS4, and an Amazon fire stick. All of them are software upgradable. A lot of smart TVs are Android based, so they are as well. A company like Netflix has decent bandwidth savings if only a few percent of its users switch, and the switchover will be nearly invisible to them. The app will just query the hardware to find what codec is available.

      Obviously there's no need for you to re-encode your videos. Storage is cheap, and recode causes generational loss so there's no benefit here.

  7. And what's Apple's stance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The usual "if it's not encumbered by patents, we don't want it" attitude?

    1. Re:And what's Apple's stance? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Well, it's not like I like Apple's 4th-generation Apple TV anyway. Stupid "touch interface everywhere!" mentality. When my 3rd-generation Apple TV isn't compatible with Netflix anymore, I'll switch to something else.

      Which box is the best for Netflix? Take note that I'm in Canada, so I don't care about Amazon/Hulu/whatever USA-only-streaming-services.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  8. Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What about Dirac? Invented for the exact same reason. Theora anyone? Same thing. VP1? Again.

    What's got me slightly pissed off is why the fuck these assholes all went "Nope, fuck off" to all of those in turn? Were they hoping to make enough money with locked down codecs at the time that they wanted the ability to enforce rights in codecs? Or just NIH?

    1. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What about Dirac? Invented for the exact same reason. Theora anyone? Same thing. VP1? Again.

      What's got me slightly pissed off is why the fuck these assholes all went "Nope, fuck off" to all of those in turn?

      It takes a long time to go from inventing the standard and producing a sufficiently competent encoder. Hell, look at mp3 encoding and how right now lame is tons better than the first mp3 encoder. Yet...

      Were they hoping to make enough money with locked down codecs at the time that they wanted the ability to enforce rights in codecs? Or just NIH?

      The thing is, h265 is a thing. It exists. There's active encoders. The time to gain widespread adoption was 2+ years after the encoder was a thing and that came 2+ years after a first spec was written (that's pretty vague/hazy numbers, but it gives you an idea of the pacing). It's why AV1 is "targeting" h265 by actually being 25% more efficient than it.

      That's the real issue with Dirac, Theora, VP1, and Vorbis. Yes, eventually they can proven to be as efficient or more efficient than the current gen, but the goal is to target the next gen so when h266 comes out, there will be a mature-enough competitor. At that point, the next focus group can focus more on AV2 instead of h267.

      And believe me, I'm not deriding Dirac, Vorbis, etc. They were necessary steps to show that it's possible to make an open source competitior. And honestly now the open source version of music encoders are better than their proprietary or free versions--Opus is simply amazing at about any given bitrate. But that's a byproduct of not only having a flexible enough spec to cover music encoding at lower bitrates but also a lot of experience in tweaking music encoding to capture the most vital parts of music (or voice with opus in that mode). That's where we see the real potential in future open source video encoders.

    2. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Or maybe you don't know what you're talking about?

      AV1 is an extension of VP9, which traces back to VP1, and includes Ophus for audio, developed by Xiph, as a succesor to Vorbis and Speex. Dirac is actually the only NIH project developed by a single "company": the BBC.

    3. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The economics changed. There are enough large streaming services now that it's cheaper for each of them to work with the others developing a new format than to keep licensing the latest and greatest codecs from MPEG LA. Older codecs aren't up to the challenge of streaming 4K video over the shitty connections that pass for broadband in the States.

    4. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about Dirac?

      Dirac? Well it uses wavelet compression (DWT instead of conventional DCT) which means a big chunk of techniques used in "traditional" codecs didn't apply anymore and they had to find their own solutions which just weren't that good. They managed to make it work but even at that time it wasn't particularly efficient.

      Theora anyone?

      Theora is Xiph's video codec that's based on VP3 that was "donated" to them by On2 (later bought by Google). It showed at that time a royalty free codec can survive and it had reasonable quality but just not state-of-the art. It became totally meaningless when Google made VP8 royalty free and all work on it stopped.

      VP1?

      WTF is that?

       

    5. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Lennie · · Score: 1

      Did you check who are involved ? These are the same people who worked on VP and Dirac and then some companies that know how to do streaming.

      Mostly the same core companies that were working on Opus at IETF, they started this work at the IETF as well. Not sure why they went their separate way for this though.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    6. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, and that is why dirac would be right here. Instead of getting choppy playback because you had a throttling incident, you'd get the movie in lower res but full framerate. You know, for streaming. Which is what the BBC wanted to use Dirac for.

    7. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by theweatherelectric · · Score: 2

      Not sure why they went their separate way for this though.

      AOMedia and NetVC are not separate efforts, they complement each other. The same people involved with NetVC work on AV1. NetVC will use AV1.

    8. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by theweatherelectric · · Score: 4, Informative

      What's got me slightly pissed off is why the fuck these assholes all went "Nope, fuck off" to all of those in turn?

      They didn't. VP9 is used, for example, by YouTube, Netflix, and Wikipedia. Watch a video on YouTube, right click on it and select "Stats for nerds". If your browser supports VP9 then chances are the video will be playing back in VP9.

      AV1 is the successor to VP9.

    9. Re:Sheesh. Welcome to the party, pal. by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Bear in mind there are two factors that lead H.264 to end up the standard for the web:

      1. There was some controversy as to whether the rival codecs (WebM etc) being offered by Google et al were actually as good at similar bitrates. There wasn't a consensus, with a significant number of people saying WebM was slightly worse.

      2. Apple, at an early stage, threw it's weight behind H.264 and refused to support WebM at all, including in the web browser. Meaning that every streaming company had to either support H.264, or forget about iPhone and iPad devices (even if they wrote custom apps to bypass the lack of browser support, the lack of hardware support would mean low battery lives.)

      Will this be different? I'm not certain, it's nice to see streaming media companies take an interest, but unless everyone from Apple to Roku also takes AV1 seriously, or more seriously than H.265, then we may end up with a repeat of the same situation.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  9. Could this benefit physical media advancement? by CallmeSpade · · Score: 1

    I noticed that at the bottom of the article the reason behind this is basically to adopt technologies to improve streaming services. Could this movement also be used to bring in new royalty free physical media? Call me a tin foil hat lover but I do not like the fact that everything is going streaming. People are so dependant on having to move nothing more than a couple fingers for entertainment. Well, I ask you good Sir and Madam what are you going to do when streaming services shut down? In (15)years when majority of people look at physical media like a homeless person. Let's say one day taps run dry on streaming services. (Oh no cataclysmic internet outage) Guess what? All those great tv shows and movies? Lost to your and everyone elses finger tips. As long as there is power and my VHS doesn't eat my tapes - I will always be able to show what life was like before streaming ended the entertainment industry. ;)

    1. Re:Could this benefit physical media advancement? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If something so radical happens that all streaming companies cease to exist I guess that we will either have a much better alternative available or a catastrophic even would happen, where the least of your problems would be movies....

    2. Re:Could this benefit physical media advancement? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      VHS tapes are reaching the point where they are degrading. You can still rip Blu-Ray and DVD.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Could this benefit physical media advancement? by Hamsterdan · · Score: 2

      But even then they are salvageable, even if a big chunk is damaged. Some media files won't play correctly if even 10% is damaged.

      Big scratch on a DVD disc on the wrong side of the disc? might render it unplayable. VHS that got eaten by a deck? simple splice job...

      (thinking about delamination problems on laserdiscs, even worse)

      --
      I've got better things to do tonight than die.
    4. Re:Could this benefit physical media advancement? by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Which is why DRM is such a bad thing...
      Digital brings the benefit of perfect copies, you can backup the media and keep the original safe. A spliced VHS tape may be playable while damaged, but a digital backup would be perfect.
      When dealing with kids, or media that will be played/kept in hostile conditions, it's always sensible to make backups.

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  10. Why don't they let us know what encoders were used by carlhaagen · · Score: 3, Informative

    I see a problem with Bitmovin's comparisons (linked in the article) not telling us which encoder was used for the H.264 and H.265 tests. This matters tremendously - there are shitty encoders producing bad H.264/265, and there are amazing encoders producing excellent H.264/265, at one and the same bitrate. It's like comparing a new audio coded to MP3 and using Xing MP3 instead of LAME, and calling the test legit.

  11. GPU : Yes by DrYak · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wonder if GPUs can speed things up?

    given that AMD, Nvidia, Intel, ARM, Broadcom are also on board (beside content providers like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Google)
    you can bet that Yes, there are going to be GPU implementations.

    (And if you've followed the posts of Xiph - you know that they take GPU into account from the beginning).

    Also there are already currently cloud based solution that distribute the compression workload accross a cluster.
    (Video is split into smaller segment, each segment is independently compressed by a separate job on the cluster, then the compressed streams are concatenated together).
    And bitmovin is already providing alpha support for AV-1 as it is now (so they can already test their solution and so, in a few months, on the day when AV-1 hits version 1.00 they are already ready and their users have already tested pipelines).

    Actually the only single major player that is missing here is Apple.
    Probably because they are betting all their marbles on their own patended H265/MPEG4 HEVC.
    They are among the patent owners of the patent - so using/licensing H265 comes much more cheaper for them.
    Which was the main reason for everybody else to drop H265 and consider joining Aomedia for AV-1 (between the original patent-pool, the other competing pools that have formed with other sets of patents and patent troll waiting to sue to try to get their share, licensing H265 is a much more expensive adventure than licensing H264/MPEG4 AVC was- To the point that H265 licenses cost a significant part of the price of embed ARM SoC as those used by cheap phones, ruining their competitivity)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:GPU : Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's early days, but with iOS 11 Apple have acknowledged Opus exists.

      It's at least a hint of them considering a step in the right direction...

  12. Linux : Yes. by DrYak · · Score: 1

    This should come to Kodi, right?

    Right !
    ARM and Broadcom are on the AOMedia.
    So if you use some tiny ARM computer board you should be covered (by the time Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 is out, its video-core should be able to handle AV-1).

    I use Linux on my home-made quad core desktop.

    AMD, Nvidia and Intel are also on board.
    So probably your future Radeon or Nvidia GPU is going to be able to handle it too.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:Linux : Yes. by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      Every single Pi uses the same GPU with the same capabilities (other than some clockspeed changes). They don't appear to have any plans to change it, and the next revision isn't expected until 2019 or later, so I wouldn't expect AV-1 support any time soon.

  13. AV1 still alpha by DrYak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That, and writing a non-prototype encoder, most likely.

    yup, currently AV-1 is still an alpha.

    it's still a playground in which to experiment by activating feature which are currently being developped.
    (e.g.: the Perceptual Vector Quantization (PVQ) and Assymetic Numeric System entropy coder (ANS) that were developped at Xiph as part of Daala, can be tested into AV-1)

    Wait until it hits AV-1, only then will developers start optimizing performance instead of chasing compression factors.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:AV1 still alpha by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      By the way, is it one of those standards like DJVu that are defined in terms of the decoding process? Not sure if AV1 belongs to it but such standards allow for a variety of approaches of how the encoded source can be generated and there's in principle no specific fixed quality/speed curve for those since you can come up with new ways of encoding in the future that satisfy the decoder. But I admit that I see much less into video formats.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:AV1 still alpha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, that's how they usually do it. But AFAIK the patent grant will cover the encoder and decoder.

  14. silicon still matters by rickward · · Score: 1

    Unless the principals have some nice, cheap silicon in their back pockets, AV1 likely won't go anywhere. AVC/H.264 prevailed over VC-1 in part due to reference hardware decoder designs, and HEVC/H.265 already has dedicated decoder chipsets that can fit in the next iteration of smartphones and STBs easily, freeing up GPUs for whiz-bang interface or more critical number-crunching work.

    1. Re:silicon still matters by Luthair · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you look at the membership lists its the whose who of software, hardware, streaming and editing. It looks like a very real chance of happening unless some of those members are actively sabotaging the process.

    2. Re:silicon still matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They are all chomping at the bit to have everybody all buy new hardware because the hardware they already have won't run this new thing...

    3. Re:silicon still matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Broadcom, ARM,... are part of the AOM Alliance to work on the software codec?

    4. Re:silicon still matters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      unless some of those members are actively sabotaging the process.

      Like say, MicroSoft?

    5. Re:silicon still matters by Luthair · · Score: 1

      I'm sure Microsoft would like to not pay the MPEG-LA

    6. Re:silicon still matters by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Er? Are you joking? MS is part of the MPEG-LA. Now I don't know if they have patents in H.265 but they had them in H.264

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    7. Re:silicon still matters by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      Are you joking?

      Microsoft pays about twice as much in H.264 licensing fees as they receive in licensing payments. So in effect their use of H.264 is discounted by about 50%, but they're not making a profit out of it.

    8. Re:silicon still matters by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Microsoft receives back from MPEG-LA less than half the amount for the patent rights that it contributes because there are many other companies that provide the licensed functionality in content and products that sell in high volume.

      So MS pays money for each installation of Windows; however, MS receives less money for content. That seems to be a problem for them as other companies sell vastly more content. For example iTunes probably sells way, way more content than Windows store. Amazon does too.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  15. Re:go away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Both are the future, you're the past, goodbye, we enjoyed you for a while.

  16. Re:Why don't they let us know what encoders were u by CptLoRes · · Score: 1

    Most likely they are using the h.264/h.265 reference design encoders. The reason most commercial encoders vary in quality, is because they all use different shortcuts to achieve faster encode times.

  17. Re:Why don't they let us know what encoders were u by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    This matters tremendously.

    Indeed. Especially if you are using GPU acceleration as well. But I wonder if that is part of the equation. NVENC produces garbage comparable to FFMPEG's H.265 encoder, but I still use it because a 10x speed increase matters sometimes. I imagine it matters even more when you're serving half the internet's bits to customers.

  18. Re:go away by Luthair · · Score: 4, Funny

    I like my movies encoded in RealMedia, they're warmer and the buffering adds to the experience of watching digital video.

  19. Money decision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This has nothing to do with any of this companies standing up for open access or freedoms. It is all about not wanting to pay the royalties and keep all the money for themselves.

    1. Re:Money decision by theweatherelectric · · Score: 2

      It is all about not wanting to pay the royalties

      Yes. I, too, don't want to pay royalties just to work with a video file and transmit it over the internet. I don't see video licensing as needing to be different from and I want it to be the same as HTML and PNG and JPEG and all the royalty-free protocols and formats that make the web and the internet possible. We have that now with VP9 and we will have it with AV1.

      In this instance their agenda matches our agenda. That's a good thing. Exploit it.

    2. Re:Money decision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But hopefully AV1 can be software decoded on slow old hardware in in the 240p to 360p range and hopefully it actually gets used in such cases along with Opus.
      That's the peeve I have : some of us use a PC (desktop, laptop, netbook) with slow and varying performance wifi, and so we have the ability to read the latest codecs (or what's supported by the latest Firefox) but the 'low end' streams or videos use lowest common denominator codecs (moving from flv to h264 + aac lately).

      So, I would really want to watch VP9 or AV1 with a terrible bit rate, with Opus sound (mono track if needed), even for unlawfully watching VHS rips of old 4:3 TV shows.
      Should I add, AAC is awful. After all those years, it appears it's extremely close to MP3 afterall.

      Can the html5 "video" tag be updated so that it serves H264 to legacy hardware/software (e.g. Android 4.1 phone) but serves AV1 to a Firefox 87 browser running on Ubuntu 18.04 or Debian 10 on a PC from 2007?

    3. Re:Money decision by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      But hopefully AV1 can be software decoded on slow old hardware in in the 240p to 360p range and hopefully it actually gets used in such cases along with Opus.

      1080p VP9 video works fine on old hardware. I've tried 1080p VP9 video on a desktop system from 2006 and worked fine playing YouTube in Firefox (it couldn't handle 4K video though). AV1 might end up being similar.

    4. Re:Money decision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, I think I extra-padded the CPU requirements or required lightweight nature of the would-be video. Chipset graphics, low power CPU, PowerVR Atom graphics (ugh) : much factors can make video a bit slow. But by the sound of it, this should work about as well as current or older situation then - I'm simply talking of playing modest flash or html5 video on a slow PC and getting a fair bit of frameskip and tearing but still usable.

      In case of super slow PC (but that still has at least SSE2 somehow) I think the "heroic" tricks to open youtube in an external player should work to some extent as well.
      In case of definitely decent but slowish, I expect 720p AV1 will be fine.

  20. Re:Why don't they let us know what encoders were u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well AV1 is in a far from completed state so it had a disadvantage too...

  21. So do I have this right? by Dwedit · · Score: 1

    So do I have this right? Basically AV1 is VP10, but with two pieces taken from Daala (new symbol coding inspired by Daala, and the directional deringer)?

    I'm not sure what other pieces ended up in AV1. There must have been something from Thor in there.

    1. Re: So do I have this right? by TigerTime · · Score: 1, Informative

      Opus is also in there as the audio portion.

    2. Re:So do I have this right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are more pieces from Thor and Daala than just these two (even the CDEF deringer is a combination of the one in Thor and the one from Daala) like PVQ, daala-dist, CfL hybrid from Thor and Daala, xiph rate control,... Also not all VP10 pieces will end up in AV1.

  22. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AV1 + Opus + Matroska = best quality, best size and best freedom

  23. Re: go away by bursch-X · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting for a digital version of 8mm film...

    --
    There are two rules for success:
    1. Never tell everything you know.
  24. shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    eat it and die

  25. Re:go away by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Encoding movies with RealMedia is fun, but it's even more fun using it to post to Sla[BUFFERING]

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  26. Can't wait for |\/|P4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can't wait for |\/|P4, \ /P9, and |\/|0\/ formats, will makes everything less confusing.

  27. Fast lanes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they code it in python or rust it will be uber fast!

  28. So can we retire gif now by philmarcracken · · Score: 1

    This is great at all, especially if in winds up in the webm wrapper. But can the slashdot audience please inform the general plebs about the death of gifs already. Gfycat and imgurs switcher extension .gifv are not gifs. They are motion compressed video files, forced to support h.264 inside mp4 because of apple product users. Please god can we come up with a new word, the tools people search for in 'how to make gifs' are still out there and i wish them to be quite DEAD

    1. Re:So can we retire gif now by tepples · · Score: 1

      What's a better term for "low-definition silent video, often with a low and/or variable frame rate, no longer than 15 seconds"?

    2. Re:So can we retire gif now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how about MP4? Anything you can do with animated GIF you can do better with H.264 or similar, and stick into an MP4.

    3. Re:So can we retire gif now by tepples · · Score: 1

      Anything you can do with animated GIF you can do better with H.264 or similar

      I'll believe that once you address these in a useful manner:

      A. Browsers expect MP4 container to be in a <video> tag, not an <img> tag. Several websites allow users to add posts containing <img> but not <video>.
      B. The last GIF-related patent expired in 2004. H.264 is still patented.
      C. Does H.264 in MP4 container support variable frame rate? GIF frame rates are in units of 10 ms. Could this be worked around by encoding at 100 fps and using repeat frames?
      D. Does H.264 in MP4 container efficiently store sharp, artifact-free pixel animations?
      E. Does H.264 in MP4 container allow transparency?

    4. Re:So can we retire gif now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a looping gay porn clip?

  29. Another video format by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The world needs another video format like it needs, disease outbreaks, environmental devastation and global climate change. Remember when Google announced to pull H.264 from Chrome and yet five years later it still remains?

  30. Royalty for H.264 on your personal MediaGoblin by tepples · · Score: 1

    No, it will just serve H.264. All video streaming services will encode to H.264 as their baseline

    Good for incumbents like Dailymotion, Vimeo, and YouTube. But how would the operator of a new video streaming service, such as a hobbyist operating a video streaming service on his own domain to stream his own videos, afford the patent royalty for use of each encoder used to transcode video to H.264 and audio to AAC?

    1. Re:Royalty for H.264 on your personal MediaGoblin by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      But how would the operator of a new video streaming service

      Who cares? That's their problem to solve. Don't forget all the investment in hardware and services just to start this streaming service in the first place. How are they going to afford that?

      No one says they have to support iOS, just as no one says they can't go ahead and release an app for iOS which decodes whatever video format they want to use.

    2. Re:Royalty for H.264 on your personal MediaGoblin by tepples · · Score: 1

      But how would the operator of a new video streaming service

      Who cares? That's their problem to solve.

      For example, if theweatherelectric were to produce video and exhibit it to the public, it would be theweatherelectric's problem to solve. In such a situation, how would theweatherelectric afford the H.264 encoder royalties?

      Don't forget all the investment in hardware and services just to start this streaming service in the first place.

      How much does a VPS capable of running MediaGoblin cost lately?

    3. Re:Royalty for H.264 on your personal MediaGoblin by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      How much does a VPS capable of running MediaGoblin cost lately?

      You tell me. This is your directionless hypothetical scenario so you answer the question. And what about lunch? Do they have lunch money? How will they afford lunch?

    4. Re: Royalty for H.264 on your personal MediaGoblin by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Asking absurd hypotheticals is what tepples do best.

      Yeah? Well, what if they wanted to do this on hardware from 2008?

      It's kinda what he does, pretty much always. Meh... Sometimes they are legit questions.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  31. Still image encoder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there an image format planned to go along with the AV1 video codec ?
    Like Apple pushing for the HEIF that uses the h265 codec.

    So that we can -one day- persuade Apple to switch to open standards.

    1. Re:Still image encoder by theweatherelectric · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Like Apple pushing for the HEIF that uses the h265 codec.

      During their HEIF presentation at WWDC 2017 (video and transcript, slides) Apple made the point that the HEIF format is designed to be codec agnostic. Apple will be using HEIF with H.264 and H.265, but in principle you could use any codec inside HEIF. HEIF itself is just an image container format.

      I imagine Apple will support AV1 eventually. If and when they do, they could go ahead and use AV1 in HEIF.

    2. Re:Still image encoder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Media data is encoded according to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard"

      https://nokiatech.github.io/heif/ which is presented as the official site.

      and when the HEIF was presented to the public (it looke to me like) Apple moto was "one codec to rule them all" (video & still)

    3. Re:Still image encoder by theweatherelectric · · Score: 1

      https://nokiatech.github.io/heif/ which is presented as the official site.

      It's better to look directly at the HEIF git repository than the website. To quote from the HEIF README: "HEIF is a media container format. It is not an image or video encoder per se. Hence, the quality of the visual media depends highly on the proper usage of visual media encoder (e.g. HEVC). Current standard allows containing HEVC/AVC/JPEG encoded bitstreams. This can be easily extended to future visual media codecs."

      So right now HEIF supports AVC (H.264), HEVC (H.265), and JPEG. And in the future in can be extended to also include AV1.

    4. Re:Still image encoder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple made the point that the HEIF format is designed to be codec agnostic.

      Well MPEG defined the format (that nobody was asking about) and the reason it is codec agnostic is what makes it a useless.

    5. Re:Still image encoder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It supports a bunch of crap like burst photo, so-called HDR pictures taken by cameras (can store the multiple exposures rather than just the blend or spitting out to separate files), the weird dual camera stuff that's going on on some phones, the thing like Microsoft Kinect where a normal camera takes a picture and an IR camera senses depth (is that a range finder?)

      So that doesn't feel entirely useless, and open source software can ignore the patents - I suppose someone could make a FUSE file system that shows each file as a directory with a bunch of files in it I suppose.
      I would like if you made explicit what you call the "reason", I don't understand your post because of that guessing game.

  32. I hope it will be better than their Guetzli fiasco by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    which is thousands of times computationally more expensive, just to get 15% reduction of file size, and a different set of compression artefacts, compared to libjpeg. Truly innovative work by Google.

  33. DRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where are they going to stick in their mandatory DRM? All of those services have to use it in order to get contracts for content.

  34. Re:My DAMN balls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see you're posting this in every article. Time to take a long look at yourself.

  35. Irony by hackel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's something very ironic about these three companies joining an "open media" alliance, while they all rely on DRM *extensively*.

  36. Re:go away by Whiteox · · Score: 1

    You shouldn't need multicore processors to play a video file. That's why 265 sucks.

    --
    Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!